Imagine first-responder robots that instantly heal themselves when damaged, or wires that continue to conduct electricity when cut

May 21, 2018

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers have created a self-healing material that spontaneously repairs itself under extreme mechanical damage, similar to many natural organisms. Applications include bio-inspired first-responder robots that instantly heal themselves when damaged and wearable computing devices that recover from being dropped.

The new material is composed of liquid metal droplets suspended in a soft elastomer (a material with elastic properties, such as rubber). When damaged, the droplets… read more

May 21, 2018

Cornell University engineers have designed a revolutionary 3D lithium-ion battery that could be charged in just seconds.

In a conventional battery, the battery’s anode and cathode* (the two sides of a battery connection) are stacked in separate columns (the black and red columns in the left illustration above). For the new design, the engineers instead used thousands of nanoscale (ultra-tiny) anodes and cathodes (shown in the illustration on the… read more

Small labs around the world will be able to cheaply and easily detect diabetes, cancer, and infectious diseases such as Zika virus

May 16, 2018

Researchers at MIT’s Little Devices Lab have developed a set of modular “plug-and-play” blocks that can be put together in different ways to produce medical diagnostic devices for detecting cancer and infectious diseases such as Zika virus.

The “Ampli blocks” require little expertise to assemble, and can test blood glucose levels in diabetic patients or detect viral infection, for example. They are inexpensive (about 6 U.S. cents for… read more

May 14, 2018

Noninvasive brain–computer interface (BCI) systems can restore functions lost to disability — allowing for spontaneous, direct brain control of external devices without the risks associated with surgical implantation of neural interfaces. But as machine-learning algorithms have become faster and more powerful, researchers have mostly focused on increasing performance by optimizing pattern-recognition algorithms.

But what about letting patients actively participate with AI in improving performance?

May 12, 2018

Google Duplex

Google’s new artificial-intelligence Google Duplex voice technology for natural conversations, introduced at the Google I/O event this past week, cleverly blurs the line between human and machine intelligence.

Here are two impressive examples of Duplex’s natural conversations on phone calls (using different voices):

May lead to breakthroughs in tracking brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's

May 7, 2018

Visualizing human brain tissue in vibrant transparent colors

Neuroscientists from The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Imperial College London have developed a new method called “OPTIClear” for 3D transparent color visualization (at the microscopic level) of complex human brain circuits.

To understand how the brain works, neuroscientists map how neurons (nerve cells) are wired to form circuits in both healthy and disease states. To do that,… read more

Plus molecular movies of RNA for drug discovery, an atomically thin memory breakthrough, and a Magna Carta for the AI age

May 4, 2018

Stephen Hawking’s final cosmology theory says the universe was created instantly (no inflation, no singularity) and it’s a hologram

There was no singularity just after the big bang (and thus, no eternal inflation) — the universe was created instantly. And there were only three dimensions. So there’s only one finite universe, not a fractal or a multiverse — and we’re living in a projected hologram. That’s what Hawking and… read more

May 2, 2018

Oculus Go is a standalone headset (no need for a tethered PC, as with Oculus Rift, or for inserting a phone, as with Gear VR and other consumer VR devices). It features a high-resolution 2560 x 1440 pixels (538 ppi) display, hand controller, and… read more

April 30, 2018

MIT neuroscientists have developed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sensor that allows them to monitor neural activity deep within the brain by tracking calcium ions.

Calcium ions are directly linked to neuronal firing at high resolution — unlike the changes in blood flow detected by functional MRI (fMRI), which provide only an indirect indication of neural activity. The new… read more

Holographic videoconferencing, a smart wall, and a smart-watch projector offer new ways to interact with data and each other

April 27, 2018

Holodeck-style holograms could revolutionize videoconferencing

A “truly holographic” videoconferencing system has been developed by researchers at Queen’s University in Kingston Montreal. With TeleHuman 2, objects appear as stereoscopic images, as if inside a pod (not a two-dimensional video projected on a flat piece of glass). Multiple users can walk around and view the objects from all sides simultaneously — as in Star Trek’s… read more

April 23, 2018

New technology is bringing the power of augmented reality into clinical practice. The system, called ProjectDR, shows clinicians 3D medical images such as CT scans and MRI data, projected directly on a patient’s skin.

The technology uses motion capture, similar to how it’s done in movies. Infrared cameras track invisible (to human vision) markers on the patient’s body. That allows the system to track the orientation of… read more

April 20, 2018

By combining two state-of-the-art imaging technologies, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus scientists, led by 2014 chemistry Nobel laureate physicist Eric Betzig, have imaged living cells at unprecedented 3D detail and speed, the scientists report on April 19, 2018 in an open-access paper in the journal Science.

“In silico labeling” aims to decode the terabytes of data per day generated in bio research labs

April 18, 2018

Researchers at Google, Harvard University, and Gladstone Institutes have developed and tested new deep-learning algorithms that can identify details in terabytes of bioimages, replacing slow, less-accurate manual labeling methods.

Deep learning is a type of machine learning that can analyze data, recognize patterns, and make predictions. A new deep-learning approach to biological images, which the researchers call “in silico labeling” (ISL), can automatically find and predict features in images of “unlabeled”… read more